Less than a day after we heard that Guillermo del Toro was set to start shooting At The Mountains of Madness as soon as June, it turns out the studio has balked at the $150 million price tag and R-rating.

According to Deadline, del Toro may sign on to direct Pacific Rim as his next project, instead of the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Mountains of Madness. Pacific Rimb is a big "tent pole-sized project" scripted by Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans) with tons of monsters, original world-building and a PG-13 rating.

Less than a day ago, we were hearing that Mountains of Madness was all set to go — but judging from the Deadline article and what sources are telling us, it sounds like the project fell apart at the very last minute. Deadline reports that Del Toro has given Universal a deadline of the end of the day today to decide whether to take a chance on such an expensive horror film — which would have to make $500 million worldwide to break even. It doesn't sound very likely. The best hope is that del Toro will come back to Mountains after doing Pacific Rim, and maybe by then the pricetag will have dropped.

Anyway, this is sucky news for everybody who was dying to see del Toro's vision of Lovecraft — and for del Toro, who's been stuck in limbo for ages after walking away from The Hobbit, only to see The Hobbit start production without him.